Scrolling through my drafts, I found a previously unpublished piece I wrote around mid-2017. I don’t quite know why I didn’t publish it as it is – because reading it now, it seemed appropriate, given my circumstances back then. In fact, it was less dramatic than the emotions that I remembered were churning within me. Perhaps that was why I let it sit in my drafts box – I felt it didn’t have enough of the pain, frustration, and resolve I wanted it to have.
Half the year gone, and just a few weeks after my birthday, I realize that it’s again time I do things for myself, by myself. It’s not about being selfish, but about being true to who I am. It has reached a point where I have forgotten who I am and what I am capable of doing. I’ve allowed myself to fit into a mould that others have formed for me – and it wasn’t comfortable, to say the least.
People can mean well when they tell you what’s best for you. But they can also be mistaken.
It’s time to step out and be who I was created to be.
Three quarters of a year later, I’m gradually finding my own space and my own groove. I’m doing things I enjoy, under conditions that help me flourish. I’m finally feeling that I’m becoming the person I was meant to be… or rather, I’m finally being the person I’ve always been inside.
Last year, someone told me that having an inner sense of who you are and what you’re supposed to be doing is a gift. She saw that I haven’t lost that inner compass, even after all those years of pushing my dreams aside. And she encouraged me to live out the passion that God had planted inside of me. I had mistakenly thought that ignoring my calling is a legitimate way of dying to self. Why should I be happy doing what I love, and what I’m good at, when other people need me to be elsewhere? Looking back, I realised it wasn’t a real need. It was an exceeding strong want and expectation of me – but it was by no means something necessary. I had allowed external circumstances shape me in a way I was not meant to be shaped. And it had made me uncomfortable, unsatisfied, and terribly broken.
I still don’t have everything I’ve always dreamed of having. And it is very likely that I never will. But I have the things that matter most – a purpose, a vision, and the means to work towards those things. I am no longer living someone else’s plans. I am quietly following the compass within me, leading me closer to the one who created me. I am doing the things that make me undeniably, uniquely me, the way I was made to be.
There is great power in allowing yourself to be who God designed you to be.
